The present invention relates to sheet dividers with tabs in which a label may be inserted. The present invention also relates to a set of sheet dividers with tabs and a sheet of labels for use with the tabs.
Sheet dividers are widely used office products. A sheet divider is typically used in a binder to separate sheets of paper into desired categories or sections. A tab on the sheet divider is typically labeled to indicate the particular sections of the binder. The tab projects beyond the sheets of paper so that a user can easily access which desired section of paper to turn to.
FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate a typical sheet divider 50 with a tab 52. The tab 52 is mounted to a side edge of a piece of sheet stock 54 in such a way that a sleeve 56 is formed in the tab. The sleeve 56 is open along its top and bottom edges. For the purposes of this discussion, the divider 50 has a longitudinal direction L parallel with the side edge of the sheet stock and a perpendicular transverse direction T as shown in FIG. 1. A label 58 as shown in FIG. 3 is typically folded and then inserted into the sleeve 56 in the longitudinal direction as indicated by arrows A and B in FIG. 1, i.e., in a direction parallel to the edge of the sheet stock 54.
Such conventional sheet dividers have a number of drawbacks. For example, the label 58 has the tendency to fall out of the tab 52, particularly when a binder utilizing such a sheet divider is stored or transported upright. Also, the label 58 has the tendency to bend or crease while being inserted into the sleeve 56. Further, it may be difficult to remove the label 58 from the tab 52 because of tight tolerances. In addition, because of the size of the label 58, a user is limited in how much information can be printed thereon. Still further, the shape of the tab 52 is limited to a rectangle because the top and bottom edges of the sleeve 52 need to be linear to accept a label.
Accordingly, there is a need for sheet dividers with tabs that easily allows a user to insert and remove labels from tabs and that allows a variety of shapes and sizes of tabs and complementary labels to be utilized. The present invention satisfies these needs.